Last chaos draft was a bit unusual in that we ended up going for a multiplayer conspiracy-like setting. This time, Dani, Seba and Nico were at the table trying to make something out of what felt like a rather poor set of boosters. What we used for this draft was:
• Conspiracy 2 (2)
• Modern Masters 2015
• Modern Masters 2017
• Eternal Masters
• Khans of Tarkir
• Fate Reforged
• Origins
• Battle for Zendikar
•Shadows over Innistrad
• Eldritch Moon
• Kaladesh
Since most of the sets were fairly new and no booster was in a hard language, the draft went fairly smooth. Two of us opened Conspiracy boosters for our first packs, but as usual, in order to get the most out of them, you need a wider pool of multiplayer-based cards. Otherwise, a number of them become less interesting or simply unusable. That was the case of cards like Illusion of Choice. One problem with this collection of boosters was that some of the more parasitic cards and sets had almost no place there. Kaladesh, for instance, ended up being hardly interesting, and multicolor cards from KTK were not usable. On the other hand, Masters sets always bring some decent firepower to the table, and it's always fun to use those.
One thing though, I think it's important to agree on the multiplayer aspect before drafting. We decided to go the multiplayer route after we had finished drafting, and I think having agreed on that beforehand would've made a difference when picking specific cards. My previous experience with Conspiracy had been pretty good anyway, so I thought it was a good chance to give mp a try. Now, I'm not big on commander, and I'm not the best at making mp decisions, so the game itself didn't go great for me. Honestly I think my deck was better suited for 1v1, but it was lots of fun anyway.
The two big cons of mp games for me are that you don't get to play enough with your deck during one game and that you don't get to play enough with your deck across the whole evening, meaning that you have few chances to actually get a feel for the deck you drafted. The big pros are that it's fun to share and play in this way and that it lets you integrate everyone at more or less the same level of play despite skill differences. That's a net positive if you have a diverse table! It's fairly intersting now to look back and thing how different commander players are in the way they see the game and the deck. Seba and Dani are big commander fans and I think their decks reflect that. They were also the last two standing, and I think that may be due to their better knowledge of how to handle a big table.
The game ended up with me last, Nico 3rd, Dani 2nd and Seba as the winner. It was quite a fun game that could've gone many different ways, which is always a good feeling in my opinion, as it means that there were lots of variables in play, many of which could've been under some player's control. Anyway, the decks we drafted are these:
UBR (mine)
The deck looked rather correct, packing some removal and decent creatures. Sadly I missed a bunch of land drops and never managed to snag a Mountain off the top of my deck, which meant I was left with a hand full of useless stuff. I got Mind Shatter'd too, which didn't really help either! I ended up going last, because I'm simply not good at mp and I don't think my deck was completely ready for it anyway, but I wish I had more chances to play with it, as it looked pretty fun. I had exiled Hazardous Conditions with Arcane Savant, but I never got a chance to play him, as he got discarded with Mind Shatter.
Nico's UWG fliers (3rd)
Nico is the most competitive player of us, and the best one at gaming in general. He's also the only one of us who's had experience competing at the Pro Tour, so his view of the game is more complex than mine. I do enjoy having people around who are better at the competitive side of the game because they force you to think about your game harder, and it's always a learning experience that you can later apply to the game. In the end, it was Nico who killed me, but that's what got him killed at the same time, unprepared for Seba's final blow. His deck also looks better geared at 1v1, which I guess makes a lot of sense. The mental aspect of mp is hard to dominate, and the fact that I was rocking a hand full of cards and some 4 untapped lands meant to him I was preparing for something, so he decided he should take care of me first. Since I was bluffing though, everything went south and he ended up underprepared for what would happen with the board after I was removed from it.
Dani's GB deck (2nd)
Dani's deck was the quirkiest and least orthodox of the four. The fact that it runs more fun spells than creatures is a good indicator that the deck was looking for more interesting player interactions, and so stuff like Mind Shatter makes for fun events during a game. Since politically, the deck was not the most aggressively positioned on the table, it felt relatively safe from attacks, and that's a hard trick to learn for non-commander players. Ultimately though, the low creature count played against her when she couldn't block Seba's dudes. By the way, since we played with 20 life (conspiracy style), it made everything quite faster.
Seba's WR (winner)
Seba's deck was the clear winner of the evening. Cryptolith Fragment turned out to be such a strong card for this format that not having tools to deal with it made it basically unbeatable. A couple of combat tricks and dudes on the ground kept everyone at bay (though to be fair we were all on the verge of 0 life at some point). Seba, being the commander player that he is, simply had more tools to deal with the opponents.
All in all it was a very fun draft, and doing the conspiracy style thing ended up in a fair and complex game. It's important to remember how mp results in different decks and approaches to the whole game, so keep that in mind if you ever decide to go this route.
As for the pulls, they were mostly bad. Then again, the value oriented should probably stay away from chaos drafting altogether. It's somewhat sad though that drafting newer sets almost always results in incredibly low value, but I suppose that's always been the norm. Or maybe not.
Pulls
• Surgical Extraction
• Sin Prodder
• Bloodsoaked Champion
• Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest
• Spell Pierce
• Conspiracy 2 (2)
• Modern Masters 2015
• Modern Masters 2017
• Eternal Masters
• Khans of Tarkir
• Fate Reforged
• Origins
• Battle for Zendikar
•Shadows over Innistrad
• Eldritch Moon
• Kaladesh
Since most of the sets were fairly new and no booster was in a hard language, the draft went fairly smooth. Two of us opened Conspiracy boosters for our first packs, but as usual, in order to get the most out of them, you need a wider pool of multiplayer-based cards. Otherwise, a number of them become less interesting or simply unusable. That was the case of cards like Illusion of Choice. One problem with this collection of boosters was that some of the more parasitic cards and sets had almost no place there. Kaladesh, for instance, ended up being hardly interesting, and multicolor cards from KTK were not usable. On the other hand, Masters sets always bring some decent firepower to the table, and it's always fun to use those.
One thing though, I think it's important to agree on the multiplayer aspect before drafting. We decided to go the multiplayer route after we had finished drafting, and I think having agreed on that beforehand would've made a difference when picking specific cards. My previous experience with Conspiracy had been pretty good anyway, so I thought it was a good chance to give mp a try. Now, I'm not big on commander, and I'm not the best at making mp decisions, so the game itself didn't go great for me. Honestly I think my deck was better suited for 1v1, but it was lots of fun anyway.
The two big cons of mp games for me are that you don't get to play enough with your deck during one game and that you don't get to play enough with your deck across the whole evening, meaning that you have few chances to actually get a feel for the deck you drafted. The big pros are that it's fun to share and play in this way and that it lets you integrate everyone at more or less the same level of play despite skill differences. That's a net positive if you have a diverse table! It's fairly intersting now to look back and thing how different commander players are in the way they see the game and the deck. Seba and Dani are big commander fans and I think their decks reflect that. They were also the last two standing, and I think that may be due to their better knowledge of how to handle a big table.
The game ended up with me last, Nico 3rd, Dani 2nd and Seba as the winner. It was quite a fun game that could've gone many different ways, which is always a good feeling in my opinion, as it means that there were lots of variables in play, many of which could've been under some player's control. Anyway, the decks we drafted are these:
UBR (mine)
The deck looked rather correct, packing some removal and decent creatures. Sadly I missed a bunch of land drops and never managed to snag a Mountain off the top of my deck, which meant I was left with a hand full of useless stuff. I got Mind Shatter'd too, which didn't really help either! I ended up going last, because I'm simply not good at mp and I don't think my deck was completely ready for it anyway, but I wish I had more chances to play with it, as it looked pretty fun. I had exiled Hazardous Conditions with Arcane Savant, but I never got a chance to play him, as he got discarded with Mind Shatter.
Nico's UWG fliers (3rd)
Nico is the most competitive player of us, and the best one at gaming in general. He's also the only one of us who's had experience competing at the Pro Tour, so his view of the game is more complex than mine. I do enjoy having people around who are better at the competitive side of the game because they force you to think about your game harder, and it's always a learning experience that you can later apply to the game. In the end, it was Nico who killed me, but that's what got him killed at the same time, unprepared for Seba's final blow. His deck also looks better geared at 1v1, which I guess makes a lot of sense. The mental aspect of mp is hard to dominate, and the fact that I was rocking a hand full of cards and some 4 untapped lands meant to him I was preparing for something, so he decided he should take care of me first. Since I was bluffing though, everything went south and he ended up underprepared for what would happen with the board after I was removed from it.
Dani's GB deck (2nd)
Dani's deck was the quirkiest and least orthodox of the four. The fact that it runs more fun spells than creatures is a good indicator that the deck was looking for more interesting player interactions, and so stuff like Mind Shatter makes for fun events during a game. Since politically, the deck was not the most aggressively positioned on the table, it felt relatively safe from attacks, and that's a hard trick to learn for non-commander players. Ultimately though, the low creature count played against her when she couldn't block Seba's dudes. By the way, since we played with 20 life (conspiracy style), it made everything quite faster.
Seba's WR (winner)
Seba's deck was the clear winner of the evening. Cryptolith Fragment turned out to be such a strong card for this format that not having tools to deal with it made it basically unbeatable. A couple of combat tricks and dudes on the ground kept everyone at bay (though to be fair we were all on the verge of 0 life at some point). Seba, being the commander player that he is, simply had more tools to deal with the opponents.
All in all it was a very fun draft, and doing the conspiracy style thing ended up in a fair and complex game. It's important to remember how mp results in different decks and approaches to the whole game, so keep that in mind if you ever decide to go this route.
As for the pulls, they were mostly bad. Then again, the value oriented should probably stay away from chaos drafting altogether. It's somewhat sad though that drafting newer sets almost always results in incredibly low value, but I suppose that's always been the norm. Or maybe not.
Pulls
• Surgical Extraction
• Sin Prodder
• Bloodsoaked Champion
• Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest
• Spell Pierce
Comments
Post a Comment